


on the other hand

by blackice



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, Time Skips, baby acquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 02:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12949137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackice/pseuds/blackice
Summary: From the wall—how the hell did he get in—Luke approaches Lando with curiosity plastered all over his farmboy features. “Is this,” he says with controlled delight, “what Barons of Cloud City do in their free time?”As for Lando, he is frozen prey, holding Jessa close to his chest. Her sleepy burbling gives way to silence.





	on the other hand

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i.

The last thing Lando Calrissian expects out of the war is a child. He expects orphans—he _knows_ that orphans are the unfortunate consequence of wars—but he doesn’t see himself being saddled with the care of one. He’s not that kinda guy.

As in, he’s not exactly the paternal guy. Not as in, he’s too enamored with the nightlife to be taking care of a child. Taking care of Cloud City has already been like raising a kid, except that Lando had raised it to be self-sufficient in less than ten standard years.

He knows for a fact that children take a lot more than a decade to become self-sufficient.

“There is,” says Lobot prissily, “an excellent reason as to why you’ve received the role in the girl’s life.” Considering the man is halfway across the room, leery of coming in close contact to the toddler in Lando’s arms, Lando doesn’t give a damn.

“Oh, remind me again, please,” Lando snips back. He’s pacing. It soothes the girl from wailing her heart out. He’d hit upon the successful tactic after the failure of a dozen suggestions from Lobot. “I thought we had a contingency plan for this.”

Lobot looks ready to prove him wrong, because there is, in fact, no Lobot-Lando Contingency Plan for orphans of war. _Because Lando hadn’t exactly been predicting a war to turn against Cloud City_.

“Orphanages, Lobot, I meant orphanages.” In his brief, unadulterated hissy fit, Lando accidentally jostles the kid back into the danger zone of tears. He coos at her until she settles back down. Lobot, smug bastard, remains where he is until Lando demands for some information about the girl’s identity.

There is, admittedly, a degree of hope for the thought that the girl was just misplaced. By her actual parents. Lando hasn’t hooked up with anyone for the last few years (another unfortunate consequence of war: the odds of knowing the last person you had sex with is now dead), so there is literally no conceivable way that this girl is his in blood.

Even if she looks a bit like him. A lot like him.

ii.

The girl had been found in the arms of a dead man, one who’d crumpled to his knees at a triage center. Her health is in remarkably good condition considering the warzone Cloud City has become, but her identity is missing. Genetic material records show nothing, which can be explained by a variety of means, including: destroyed, redacted (this one is unlikely), or simply not there.

The girl might have been born during the war. She wouldn’t be the first, and she wouldn’t be the last, to be born and turned orphan.

And there are a lot of orphans.

Lando Calrissian, regardless of his status as a renowned war general or Cloud City’s most beloved Baron Administrator, still shares in the civil duty of raising the city’s orphans into responsible, honorable citizens.

iii.

Lando names her Jessa Calrissian. He figures if she hates it, she’ll change it. Till then, there is a never-ending supply of dad-jokes regarding Jessa Calrissian’s unique status as ‘jes’ a’nother Calrissian.’

iv.

Lando makes an excellent single parent to a two year (three? It’s been heavily debated what date Lando ought to make her _birthday,_ much less what age to ascribe to her) old child. He stays up late and wakes up early. He tries not to lose his cool, and pretty much succeeds. He’s less trim than he was during the war, even though Jessa runs him ragged.

Sometimes the way Jessa sprawls over his chest (when Lando is simply _done_ for the day and is on the floor, belly turned up to the ceiling) and huffs and burbles something sweet, it makes Lando think that he’s not too shabby at this parenting gig.

However, there are moments where Lando is just _lost_. Jessa has this weird screaming period that happens every day, 0900 hours on the _dot_. No medical professional has any advice, but Cloud City’s network of parents offers some home remedies and solutions. Some appear to delay the shrieks, because Jessa’s face will go cherubic and cute, and then 0900 hours will hit, and then Jessa goes absolutely crazy.

Lando grimly slogs through it with her and feels weirdly thankful that he’s had his rooms sound-proofed.

v.

He hides the fact that he’s acquired a child from his closest friends. Lando’s quite proud of his skills of deception, because he’d been certain he slipped up at holocalls when Leia and Han (mostly Han) were stressing over the inception of their own kid.

“Is that a baby?” asks Han once, squinting at the camera. “Is there a baby somewhere in your _private_ rooms, Lando?”

Lando insistently offers Jessa, situated in a mobile cradle under his desk, a favorite action figure of hers. Its non-toxic paint has been gnawed off. His baby is appropriately terrifying. Jessa takes it and leaves drool on his fingers, which he wipes off before prominently tenting his hands together atop his desk.

“No,” he says clearly. “Are you sure you’re not hallucinating little Lando’s cries for help already?”

Han forgets about the mysterious baby babble. “I _told_ you, we’re not naming our first kid after you. You’re getting godfather privileges with Chewie, that’s it. We agreed. We made a deal.”

“Little Lando is going to tear your life apart,” intones Lando. “He’s going to absolutely ruin your nights. Crying. There will be so much crying, and no one but Uncle Lando the famous, medal-adorned general of the Millennium Falcon will be able to calm him.” Try as he might, he can’t stifle the small twitch of his grin. Han’s face is too much.

“You’re a terrible friend,” Han tells him. “I was gonna warn you, but now I think I’m just gonna wait.”

 _That’s_ not ominous. “What?”

“Oh-h-h yeah, I’m just gonna wait for your reaction.” The smug smirk brings back fond memories of Lando punching it off. Bastard even adds the ‘lean casually back into the chair’ motion. “So. Uncle Lando. It was good talking to ya.”

“I hope Leia sends you and Chewie back to Hoth to freeze your—”

vi.

Lando is on edge for the next few days. He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Jessa picks up on his mood, and she’s a little twitchy too. They’re feeding each other’s twitchiness, and this, this and nothing else seems to prove to Lobot that they’re becoming a _family_ unit.

He’s got Jessa cradled in his arms, rocking her back and forth and muttering some old Corellian drinking song to get her to relax. Lando’s not too worried about her picking up the lyrics. They have too many syllables to be repeated perfectly by babies.

And then, in the sanctuary of his private rooms:

From the wall—how the hell did he get in—Luke approaches Lando with curiosity plastered all over his farmboy features. “Is this,” he says with controlled delight, “what Barons of Cloud City do in their free time?”

As for Lando, he is frozen prey, holding Jessa close to his chest. Her sleepy burbling gives way to silence.

“Baby-sitting?” asks Luke, generously giving Lando a way out.

“Uh,” says Lando instead, “no. No, this is Jessa. Jessa Calrissian.” He hates how Luke just takes this revelation with little more than widened eyes. _Han_ , at least, would’ve spooked straight back to his ship, found the good rum, and sprinted right back for a celebratory drink.

Does Luke even drink?

“She’s cute.”

“She’s a Calrissian, it comes with the name.”

Luke grins, comes a little closer. Only Jessa prevents Luke from coming chest to chest with Lando, but then again, it is Jessa that Luke is inspecting. “She looks like you,” he comments, raising an ungloved hand as if to gently touch her forehead. But he stops. He looks to Lando for permission.

“You wake her, you hold her,” says Lando, and Luke goes right ahead to brush his fingertips over Jessa’s slack expression. “Triage center found her without any identity to work off of. It’s really a miracle that they’ve only given me one kid, knowing all the resources I’ve got.”

“Probably didn’t want to make you more vulnerable,” Luke returns. “The more children in your care, the more chances of kidnapping, ransom, blackmail—the list goes on.”

Lando blinks. “Is that a Tatooine motto?”

“It’s a fact of life, Lando.” Luke nudges Jessa’s puffy white vest. There’s a small smile on his lips. Why is he fixating on Luke’s lips. Focus, Calrissian. “Although, the Darklighters did have a dozen children running around at one point. Leia and Han will likely just have the one, to minimize risk. I think Leia would like two, though.”

“And you, Master Jedi?” Lando doesn’t mean for it to sound like a challenge, and yet it does.

“I’ve always liked the idea of being an uncle more than a father,” answers Luke anyway. A sudden twist in his features, and farmboy Luke turns into Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, Savior of the Galaxy. “We’ve got some business.”

“I’ll just settle Jessa down, then.”

vii.

“You had a kid this whole time!” fumes Han. “This whole time I’ve been panicking to you about how I’m worried about messing up _my_ kid, and you’ve been—you’ve been—”

“Been raising a kid worried about messing her up like mine did me,” interrupts Lando, tired. “Get over it, Han. I wanted to settle in.” Jessa, using his lap as a boost to see over his desk, begins to flail. She sees buttons, she wants to hit them. Lando understands.

“Who else knew?”

“Cloud City,” Lando drawls. He heaves a sigh and deftly scoots Jessa’s attention to a polished, gnarled coil of wood Luke had brought over from his travels. Supposedly, it would fascinate Jessa’s baby logic to no end. Lando hopes it will distract her for five minutes. “Alright, so this business you sent Luke in for…”

Han looks faintly queasy. “Let’s not talk shop.”

“Sure. You wanna start making arrangements for Jessa and Little Lando’s transgalactic playdates?”

Han makes a gut-punched sound. “Let’s talk shop.”

“It is,” says Lando emphatically, “a goddamn miracle you’ve survived domesticity for so long.”

viii.

Luke comes over to Cloud City a number of times. He establishes himself as a quiet, private man to Cloud City’s eyes, and this lets him get away with a lot of shit. Namely, the number of times he has invaded Lando’s private rooms without repercussions.

Luke comes over to Lando’s rooms bearing gifts for Jessa. The wooden paperweight. An action figure of General Leia Organa. A durable weird rattle-thing that came from a backwater planet. After Luke delivers the knick-knacks, he gives Lando a perfunctory reason for coming to Cloud City, then swans off to go sleep on a couch till mealtime.

“You let me sleep,” explains Luke at one breakfast, a little grouchy at the bright morning glow. “No one really lets me rest from being a Jedi Master, Savior of the Galaxy.” He brightens himself. “And I’m getting a baseline standard for babies from Jessa.”

“Jessa Calrissian,” says Lando modestly, “is the best.” He slides a plate of toast and eggs over to Luke, adding a glass of juice like an after-thought when Lando’s pretty much memorized Luke’s Cloud City diet. Milk is never on the table.

ix.

Jessa Calrissian grows up thinking Luke is her uncle, just until the point where she thinks Luke is her secondary dad. “Like,” she tells Lando at the wise age of twelve, “the kinda dad that just pops up every now and then to make sure I still love him.”

“That hurts, kid,” says Lando. “Please never tell Luke that.”

“I’m _smart_ ,” sniffs Jessa. “Smarter than Ben, anyway.” She winces, then sheepishly smiles when Lando reaches over to ruffle her hair, the springy curls fanning out like a halo under his hand. Jessa used to adore Ben, just until the point he realized his connection to the Force and told her, a little imperiously, about how Jessa had to trust in what the Force was telling him. It worked for a day. “Too far?”

“You’re smarter than Ben,” Lando says. “Best kid in the universe, even though you never do the dishes when I ask you.” He pats her shoulder. “And I’m pretty sure Luke loves you more than me. So there’s that.”

Jessa gives Lando a _look_. The long-suffering kind. “Sure, dad. Sure.” Since Lando is certain he’s never disclosed his long-term celibacy to his daughter, Lando gets the idea that Jessa thinks he and Luke are actually _together_.

Oh, geez.

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**Author's Note:**

> I might revisit this, or just expand on it in the future. Put a LOT more emphasis on Lando and Leia's friendship as two people who are involved in galactic politics, but also as the two friends who have the common sense of the group.
> 
> This may have been uploaded in part due to the outrage of Lando not being in VIII.


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